A computing system can include a database that stores data in a storage on persistent media, such as a disk drive. In addition or in the alternative, the computing system can store data fully or partially (buffered) in main memory included in the computing system. The amount of data stored in the main memory and/or stored in persistent media can determine the cost of storage.
Various technologies exist that can control storage cost. The technologies can include, but are not limited to, data archiving, data aggregation, data compression or a combination of the various technologies. In some cases, one or more compression algorithms can compress the data stored in a database in order to maximize the number of database records that can be included in a given amount of data storage space. In some cases, however, the data compression can result in the loss of some of the data or in a reduction in the accuracy of the stored data. If the loss of some data or a reduction in data accuracy is unacceptable, data compression rates for the data will then be limited as the data compression rates are dependent on incidences of equal data values within a range of data to be compressed. It may be desirable, therefore, to further increase the amount of data that can be stored in a given amount of data storage space without losing any of the data and/or without reducing the accuracy of the stored data.